Saturday, September 30, 2021: The Royal Palace of Caserta
By Gael Galindo
The Royal Palace of Caserta is one of the largest palaces in the world. When we arrived at Caserta, we parked our charter bus underneath the palace and made our way up to street level by stairs to get our first glance of it. Once I walked up all of the stairs, I saw the palace and it did not seem that big to me. As we walked closer to the entrance of the palace, suddenly everything about it was huge! The structure didn’t seem so intimidating in part because of the pink and white colours that popped out everywhere giving the palace a very nice touch. The two pillars on the side of the entrance were massive and seemed to never end. Once we entered, the ceilings of each room had very nice motifs on them. Then I saw the famous staircase, it had two statues of lions on the sides and statues of three people on top. We wandered around the palace and visited many different rooms using an audio touring device. There were many rooms decorated in gold leaf, furniture and painting frames. The palace was so big it felt like the rooms would go on forever. As well, the palace was in really good condition and I really liked visiting it.
The palace was a culturally enriching experience. There were many paintings that told stories and a lot of history loomed behind the construction and use of the palace. It amazes me that the building was built before cranes were invented because the palace is enormous and a lot of the sculptures and marble details were carved by hand and must have weighed tons. The thing I liked the most about this trip was eating lunch in the garden behind the palace. We ate together as a group and I had a great time during the visit.
